Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Ohhhhhh...yes!!!!

Finally out of the GYM! YES!!! Don't get me wrong. I like Boulder, and I love The Spot. But damn, I am psyched to be out for a bit. ON THE ROAD. It started a few weekends ago. We rolled out with a huge crew to Joe's Valley when the Boulder weather went shit and just killed the place. People sending right and left...forks. Great climbing with great people. Then Alex and I took off to Horse Pens 40 for the 2nd leg of the Triple Crown. We stopped in Dallas and drove the rest of the way with Old Man Dave and the palace on wheels. Camping at it's finest.

Horse Pens 40 is one of my favorite places to climb. Period. I love slopers and Horse Pens has many. My day started off strong with quick sends of No Tranquility V9, God Module V11, and Super Slider V10. I got really, really close to flashing God Module two years ago and haven't managed to finish it up since. This year it felt very easy and even without crimping for the last 6-9 months and still having a fucked up finger, it's nice to know I'm still making gains. The rest of the day included sends of Skywalker V9, Pegmado V9, Cadillac Thrills, V9, Hot n' Tot V10, Ghetto Superstar V9, Suspicion V8, and Megatron V8 to round out my top ten. Very psyched on the day and I managed to place 3rd which was super exciting for me. I also managed to up my score from last year by over 1500 points which is great considering I only get to climb at the area once a year. Congrats to the winners and I can't wait till next year.

From Alabama, we headed back to Texas to pick up my car. It is officially free of "tree damage". Check out the Deadpoint Video on the topic. So psyched. Upon receiving the car, we headed straight to Arkansas. Two days of sandstone bouldering was the plan. I managed to climb Chunk Up The Deuce V12 in fairly quick time. Preceded by Fred's Cave V10, and followed by Glass Bowl V10, Tang V10, and a flash of the very cool Flash Gorden V10 after ripping the left hand start hold off the wall cause it would fallen off anyway. The new hold doesn't change Flash Gorden at all, but Anti-Hero is a bit different. Arkansas has an INSANE amount of potential and everything that I climbed was phenomenal in both quality and movement. Except Tang, that one wasn't really that cool. I am psyched to return soon when the temps are a bit cooler.

Chunk Up The Deuce V12 (Screenshot from Footage to be released on Deadpoint)

Glass Bowl V10

After torrential downpours at HCR to round out Day 2, locking my keys in my car, getting a flat tire, driving 6 hours in the rain to St. Louis, crashing at our friend Doug's house (Thanks Doug!), and another 6 hour drive, we made it to the Red River Gorge. And that's where we now reside. Life is good. Today was our first climbing day and we hit up the Motherload and Bob Marley. I planned on being in shape by the time I got here, but my hectic schedule the past month or two has allowed little climbing of the endurance type. Today was my "test' day. See where I'm at. See how weak I am. I started off the day with a run up Ale-8-1 (5.12b) on the Undertow Wall and felt like shit. No flow. Mild pump. Not good. I sat around for a bit and realized that the only way that I was going to learn my weaknesses was to really push my limits. I walked down into the Madness Cave and looked up at the only route that I hadn't tried. The Madness (5.13c). After falling off post-crux at the last bolt on my On-sight attempts of both Transworld Depravity 5.14a and Omaha Beach 5.14a, I decided that it might be time to settle the score. I tied in and set off. Soon enough I was at the anchors for my hardest On-sight to date. Perfect flow, almost no pump, and a shit-ton of psych. A great way to start the two-week trip. I followed with an On-sight of Snooker 5.13a and a flash of 8-Ball 5.12d. Nice first day. We ventured over to Bob Marley later in the day and I also managed to climb the crux of 50 Words For Pump 5.14c first try. I little more endurance and I should be able to finish it off. Hopefully with the quickness. That's the name of the game out here. Word.

Also, Check out Two Kings, a video that I just released on Deadpoint with some nice Joe's Valley footage. More to come from that trip with some sends from Alex Puccio and the Crew.